Append to file or create file depending on input filename.

[markuhs]

Hi Monks,

I learned about three-way open and wanted to use it. Everything seemed OK. Then I encountered problems with one particular script. It opens a file and writes to it. Normally no problem. The usage, however, caused some problems.

The script is used in the following two ways:

C:\>perl script.pl outfile
C:\>perl script.pl ">outfile"

The second is used to append the data produced by the script to the already existing data.

Hmm... Three-way open brought me from open $filehandle ">$outfile" to open $filehandle ">", $outfile" which causes the trick not to work anymore.


First take on it:

my $openmode = '>';
if($outfile =~ m/\A>/xms)
{
    $openmode = '>>';
    $outfile =~ s/\A>//xms;
}
open($filehandle, $openmode, $outfile);

Any suggestions how to do this more elegant?

UPDATE: as per comment of bellaire (>outfile changed to ">outfile").